If you come out of Bond Street Station in central London and walk for about five minutes down the busy high street, you'll come across a crossing

If you come out of Bond Street Station in central London and walk for about five minutes down the busy high street, you'll come across a crossing. Cross it. Walk down a little more and in front of you, in the corner of a curb, there'll be a Starbucks.

Go in.

Welcome.

You are now standing in the place where one Draco Malfoy, aged 18, worked…

…and had been working for just over a week. It was a Tuesday when he started, a horrible uncomfortable, wet Tuesday, and today was a Wednesday. The week had been uneventful and he relatively quiet, the complete opposite to what Draco thought he would have been like if he saw himself working in a muggle coffee shop, serving muggles and (worst of all) taking orders from muggles.

The war had changed everyone.

Not that he liked it anymore than anyone expected him to but he had learned a long time (ok, last year) that keeping his trap shut and opinions to himself was sometimes the most prudent choice to make. Especially if doing anything out of line, even just a little thing like whining (which was Draco's forte), could, more likely than not, land him in Azkaban for the rest of his miserable existence.

or have cold, scabby lips descended upon his own…

Draco shivered.

They said that he was lucky, he knew he was more than lucky, not to have been killed by either side during the last battle, during the war. He was more than lucky to have both his parents survive, relatively unscathed, to have his small family still complete (though not for very long now…) when so very, very few could say the same. He hadn't lost a body part, lost his looks, lost his mind (though the word 'yet' clung ominously behind that). He was more than lucky.

Yet why did he feel like the world screwed him over?

Because he was fucking Draco Malfoy, and he was fucking serving fucking muggles who thought they were fucking superior when they fucking weren't and his parents were in fucking Azkaban and his whole fucking life was fucking ruined forever.

Fuck, he spilt coffee on himself. It burned like hell.

It wasn't fair.

The muggle girl, with whom he was working, Michelle or Michel or whatever, turned around and asked if he was ok, though she was laughing at him really, and customer he was serving, some fat, pretentious man with a ponytail, looked at him with sneering contempt.

Well, fuck you, Draco thought, we'll see whose laughing when I imperio you to stick your ugly head up the fat bastard's arsehole.

He gritted his teeth and apologised. It wasn't fair at all.

The thought of 'it wasn't fair' was one he had been mulling over since he was old enough to understand what the words meant. Probably before then, knowing him. It wasn't fair that he had to go to bed before Dad and Mum, it wasn't fair he wasn't allowed to sleep next to Mum when Dad was (though Draco knew now, with a childish shiver, why that was), it wasn't fair when other children had a toy he didn't have. When he got older, it became more school orientated. It wasn't fair that the teachers didn't like him, that he had to share a dorm and a bathroom, that mudbloods got better grades than he did. And it really, really wasn't fair that Harry Potter didn't want to be friends with him. He became friends with Weasley, with Granger, with Longbottom,why not him?After the Incident on the Train, most 'it wasn't fair's revolved around Potter.

Stupid Potter.

Stupid, brave, heroic, powerful, scary Potter, who saved his life twice during the last battle, who died and came back and defeated the Dark Lord in a one on one duel. Who, in retrospect, saved him from having the rest of his life being a constant repeat of the past hideous year. Who Draco hadn't seen since the last battle few months ago, covered in blood and dirt, looking as if he was finally free.

Draco hasn't forgiven him nor stopped hating him but…

The war had changed everything.

The fat man finally got his mocha (with whipped cream and marshmallows and all, the obese prick. He should stop lying to himself and just get the hot chocolate deluxe that he so clearly wanted) and Draco turned to deal with the next customer. No time to relax. No time to think about Potter. He really shouldn't even be thinking about Potter, but what else was there to think about? How he's exiled into the muggle world, how his every action is being monitored, how he's never going to see his parents, his friends (a word he could ironically begin to use after this terrible year) ever again? Remembering all those things that happened??

No, he didn't think so.

Potter was a safe territory for his mind to wander into. He always had been because he was simple, unlike everything else which either brought pain or confusion to well up inside Draco, to stew and rot. Potter just brought on a familiar anger which Draco almost found comforting and reassuring when everything else in his world had gone topsy turvy.

Damn he was thinking about Potter again. Concentrate. Ok, this customer's done, now the next. And the next. Today was busy. Hell, she wants that really complicated thing. Don't mess up. The manager had told him to brighten up once in a while, that his expression was scaring customers. Draco wished it would, they were too many of them, but he tried to crack a smile anyway. Couldn't hurt. Damn, his lips didn't even move. To hell with that idea then, he didn't know why he was bothering to try. He hadn't smiled since…he'd be damned if he knew.

Draco turned to the next customer, who was waiting there patiently, without really looking. Draco found that you stopped seeing people once you were doing this for more than two hours non-stop, and start merely seeing blobs with orders and money. Unless they had complaints of course, then Draco could see them. He could see them being cursed with the Jelly-Legs jinx.

"Your order, sir?"

There was a pause and then suddenly a low chuckle.

"Draco Malfoy working in Starbucks, my god, it really is the funniest thing ever."

At the sound of his name, Draco froze. That voice. Shit, it couldn't be. Slowly, he raised his eyes from his trembling hands to be met, by some terribly cruel twist of fate, with the object of his ponderings.

"Dear me," smirked Potter, his black hair annoyingly tousled as it had always been, his hated green eyes glinting in amusement, "You really have gone down in the world, Malfoy."

Draco gaped, abashed, "What?! What the hell are you doing here?!"

"Shhh, no need to raise your voice. People are looking."

Potter put a finger to his lips, grinning. Clenching his fists angrily, Draco lent forward, checking that he wasn't being watched by Michelle or the manager, to whisper furiously.

"I repeat, what the hell are you doing here? More importantly, how did you know where I was?!"

Potter rolled his eyes. "Well, I am the saviour of the Wizarding World. I think that entitles me certain privileges, like looking at Ministry files, wait, I am part of the new Ministry, quite a big part, you know?"

Obviously that was the case. Draco almost slapped himself for forgetting who Potter was now. He was allowed to do particularly anything, now that he was the unquestionable boy hero. He was close to the new Minister, Shacklebolt too, and part of the Recovery, Restoration and Retribution Programme (a.k.a. The Three R's) lead by Granger. Of course he could find Draco, if he wanted to.

If he wanted to…

"That doesn't explain why you're here, Potter. Though it's absolutely delightful that you came to visit me, haven't you got anything better to do than to laugh at my current humiliating position? Like an autograph session? Or giving a heart-warming speech to house elves?"

"You never change, do you?" Potter commented coolly, his light-hearted disposition darkening ever-so slightly, "Always needing to attack."

"I'm always needing to attack?!" Draco spat, lips twisting back into that familiar curl, to that familiar identity "You're the fucking one to talk! Am I the one who blows things up when I'm angry?! Am I the one who - !"

Draco stopped himself, suppressed that part of himself. Nothing good would come out of him losing his temper at the Wizarding World's favourite knight in shining armour, especially not here, not now. He was given a sort of second chance at life and no matter how distasteful it may be, he wasn't going to let Potter ruin it for him. Like how he ruined everything else in Draco's life.

Taking a deep breath, Draco demanded quietly, "Tell me the reason you're here, Potter, or get out. You know how awfully I missed these little conversations with you but I have a job to and there's people waiting to be served. Wizards now think you're some sort of god to worship but muggles, you may find, don't."

Potter's eyes searched Draco's eyes for a while, which Draco found deeply unnerving, and then he raised his eyebrow. He gesture behind him.

"What people?"

Indeed, behind Potter there was in fact nobody there. Draco, stunned, scanned the rest of the café. No one, only Michelle wiping some spillage on one of the tables.

"Kinda dead tonight, huh?" Potter said innocently, fiddling with a piece of hair between his fingers, "I think I might have a cappuccino."

Draco narrowed his eyes. Potter must have some sort of Muggle repellent charm on him, a weak kind, so as not to repel Michelle or the any of the other staff. But if he had a charm on, this was no coincidental meeting. Potter was here on business.

"Potter, what I said still goes. Speak or get out, I'm in no mood for reminiscing our happy little Hogwarts days. Especially not with you."

Potter met his glowering eyes defiantly. Sighing, he raises his hands up in mock defeat, all the while his emerald eyes boring uncomfortably deep into his grey ones.

"Ok, ok. You win. But you really won't like it."

"Potter, I'm warning you.."

"Well, I'm here to see your manager-.."

"What?!"

"…-about your behaviour, being your new supervisor."

"YOU??"

Harry shrugged. "See I said you wouldn't like it."

Draco was too shocked to move or speak. Why, why, why, why, why was Potter of all people was Draco's supervisor?? It just didn't make any sense whatsoever. Monitoring Draco was a dead-end job, even Draco knew that. It was essentially babysitting a death eater. Potter could do anything he wanted, absolutely anything, no questions asked. So why for Merlin's sake, would he take on this time consuming, useless back-end of a job, a job where he would be forced into spending time with someone he positively hates? To get at Draco? No, not even Potter would do something as pig-headed as that.

"You need to see the manager?" asked Michelle curiously from behind. She must have been eavesdropping on them all this time, Draco realised with horror. "He's in the office at the back. Shall I take you to him?"

"Oh," Potter faltered a little, Draco saw with glee. He must have not realised she was there. "Oh, um, yeah please, if you could."

Same old Potter. Draco had thought he had changed, had grown harder, more confident but he was the same awkward, ineloquent little boy who couldn't even ask a girl on a date. To muggles, anyway. To pretty muggle girls, anyway. Draco chortled in malicious amusement inside…

At the back of his mind, however, Draco knew Potter was different from how he was a year ago. He was more assured of his place in the world, more relaxed in his gait and seemed infinitely more formidable. He would never admit it, but Draco's heart raced in a kind of exhilarating fear with just his mere presence…

…before sneaking quickly into the back, intent on listening in. No doubt Potter couldn't wait to have him sent back to Azkaban and would probably pick on the smallest detail. Draco couldn't let that happen. He couldn't go back there, not ever, he just couldn't. The Dementors…they, they make him think of those things that happened …those terrifying, nauseating dark nights…and he couldn't bear to remember.

The hand that suddenly grabbed his shoulder made him almost jump out his skin.

"Ah!"

Michelle quickly pulled her hand away. "Ah! Shit, sorry! Didn't mean to scare you there! Just wondering what that was all about."

"It was nothing."

"Er, ok, right. Why does he need to see David? Who is he by the way?"

Damn she was nosy.

"He's no one. Just someone I knew from school." Draco mumbled, averting his eyes. He'd gotten into the habit of doing that, not looking people's eyes. One word; Legitimancy. Draco shuddered at the numerous memories coursing through him, linked to that gruesome word. Even after two months, Draco still couldn't break it, even towards muggles, disgustingly enough. "He's coincidently got business with David, that's all. It's got nothing to do with me."

Michelle peered at him suspiciously. "If you say so. But you're curious about it, aren't you? Don't even deny it." She said in mischievous glee as Draco opened his mouth. "I can help you listen in without any chance of getting caught. You know the female locker room? It's next to the office and the walls are paper thin. You can hear pretty much a fly dying from there."

"What's the catch?" Draco demanded; face stony with distrust, "We've hardly said two words to each other this whole week. What is it that you want?"

She raised her hands up, very much like how Potter did only minutes before. Was she mocking him?

"You're pretty edgy huh? I just wanted to help out, seeing as you looked so upset. Seriously, I don't want anything, though now you mention, maybe a drink after the shift will do nicely."

"A drink."

"Yeah, you know, an alcoholic beverage?" she gave a frightful impersonation of Draco's public school boy accent and mimed drinking, "You look kinda short on friends."

That's because I don't fucking need muggle friends, Draco thought angrily. Is she hitting on me?

Dad's Life rules No.1: Nothing ever comes without a price.

That aside, he really did need to hear what David, the manager, was saying to Potter, so he quickly told her the affirmative on the drinks front and dashed into the female changing room. The room itself was tiny and it smelt distinctly like girls: perfume, cosmetics and shampoo. More importantly, Michelle was right. Draco almost could've kissed the muggle when he clearly heard Potter's voice through the grey coloured walls.

"…-eally? So he hasn't been any trouble at all?"

"Been as good as gold. I'm pretty surprised about it myself," came David's laid-back loll of a voice, "I mean, judging by who he is, I thought he'd put up more fight."

"So, he's happily serving coffee to muggles? I can't believe that. I know Malfoy. He wouldn't be happily serving wizards. He wouldn't be happily serving, full stop. Bar Voldemort, of course."

Don't think you know shit about me, scar-head, fumed Draco. He wished he could break Potter's stupid nose like in the good old days. Hey, wait. How the hell does David know about me? About wizards?

David's melodious laugh tinkled. "I wouldn't say he was happy. In fact he looks like the personification of a frown beating up the guy who told him turn upside down. Seriously fucked up. Looking at him makes me pretty glad I wasn't born a wizard like Colin and Dennis…"

There was a sudden shift in David's voice and for a moment a dark silence hung over in the air. Colin? Colin Creevey, maybe? The Harry Potter fan-boy? He was a muggle-born, wasn't he? Then that probably meant that David was related in some way to him, maybe a cousin since he wasn't that old, mid twenties, and probably on his mother's side because of his surname and…

Creevey was dead.

Shit.

"Colin was a great guy," Potter said softly, "He helped so much during the war an-,"

"And we're going off topic." David responded brightly, fakely. "Drake isn't reacting well socially. He doesn't speak to any of the other staff and when he answers me, it's 'yes' or 'no' at the best of times. I don't know what the hell he does when he's not working, I can hazard a guess that it's not much apart from locking himself up in his flat. He looks a bit pale too, maybe he's ill?"

Draco could almost sense Potter shaking his head. "That's him normally. Actually he looks a lot better since the last time I saw him. And 'Drake'?"

"Oh, yeah. That's what we know him as. Drake Malford. I usually call him 'Drakey boy' or 'Drakers' to try to brighten him up."

"Does it work?"

"Nope."

Potter laughed and Draco could feel his face burn in humiliation. Sounds of chairs scraping warned him that the two were leaving, so he made a swift escape back into the serving area.

Trying as hard as hell to look busy and not as if he was just in a girl's locker room, Draco moved some cups around under Potter's amused scrutiny. Glaring, Draco turned to face him, with a look that obviously conveyed a 'what are you looking at' sort of meaning. Potter, oblivious as he ever chooses to be, kept right on looking.

Bastard.

Well, if he was going to be like that, then Draco would do the same so he went right on moving the cups silently. A few minutes passed before Potter said lightly.

"I need to question you now, Malfoy. How are you getting along since I last saw you?" Though how he could say that lightly was beyond Draco's imagining.

"Hmm, let me see," started Draco in an overly cheerful, sarcastic manner, his volatile temper reaching its limit, overriding his rationality, "I've just had the most wonderful time in Azkaban for exactly four weeks and five days, with those pesky little Dementors flying around. Then I just happen to wonder into the muggle world, where I'm going to stay in exile for the entertainment of the higher ups I presume, working in a coffee shop, being ordered around by the beings I hate most. So really, I'm just peachy."

Potter rolled his eyes, as if the whole thing was a big joke. "And your little pure-blooded hands are getting blisters and you can't dress your self without house-elves, blah, blah, blah. I get it. Look, I've got more important things to do than listen to you feel sorry for yourself, so if you, for just one second, be grateful enough to co-operate-.."

"Grateful for what?! I don't even know why I'm out here, for god's sake!"

"Frank didn't explain?" Potter asked, genuinely looking puzzled. Frank had been his previous supervisor, a silent, bulky man who clearly hated Draco and resigned after two days. "They didn't explain during your hearing?"

Draco shook his head, angrily remembering his rough treatment and casual dismissal during his hearing two weeks back.

"They told me that because of something about there not being enough evidence of me actually committing serious crimes compared to the others, only my presence at the scenes, that my punishment would be lighter. They said that I was sentenced to a monitored exile form the Wizarding World, though none of them looked too happy about it."

"Shit. Those useless buggers." Potter sighed somewhat wearily, "They accidentally on purpose seemed to have forgotten to mention that you're part of an experiment that Hermione thought up."

"I'm a what?"

"It's part of the Three R's called Muggle Awareness Experiment. She wants to see whether if Death eaters were less ignorant of muggles, they could have empathised with them, see them above the level of animals. It's the long term solution of something like this never happening again. Thus, being the most stubborn, annoying git we know, you're the first subject."

Draco narrowed his eyes into menacing slits. "Fuck no. I'm not being some sort of guinea pig for the likes of Granger!"

"So you'll rather go back to Azkaban?" Potter snorted, raising his eyebrows.

"No, I'd rather be fucking free!"

"I doubt any amount of sucking up and kissing arse would get you that," Potter shook his head, "God, you really don't change. I guess that's why it's so funny seeing you work in Starbucks. I have got to bring Ron here one day!"

Draco's lip curled nastily, while his grey eyes sparked with malevolence. "Oh, how are the Weasleys these days?" he sneered, "I heard they lost a member. Oh, but it's ok. That's the one they had a spare for, right?"

Potter's flying fist cut off the snigger Draco was about to start and it slammed against his jaw. Dazed by shock and pain, Draco staggered backwards, swearing loudly, cradling his face. He glanced through his fingers and the sight which stood before was something so refreshingly terrifying that his heart leapt right up to his throat and he felt that he was dragged back to the months before. Dragged back to the Dark Lord.

Potter was angry. No, he was more than angry; he was practically burning with fury.

"Never," he murmured, and somehow that murmur was more frightening to Draco than any screams or shouts could have, "ever insult the Weasleys again, if you know what's good for you. That includes staying alive."

Draco's arms were stiff against his body. He was trembling slightly, unable now to control his fear, thinking 'it's the end, it's the end' over and over in his mind. Part of him wondered though, in all his panic, whether staying alive actually was what was good for him. Was it worth living in this prisoner's life?

Their eyes locked on. Draco's trembles evolved into shudders but he could not look away from those terrifying orbs, which looked so much like the green flashes of his nightmares, death, pain, avada kedavra.

NO, NO, NO!!

How stupid was he? What part of him was so suicidal that he would go and be like this to fucking Harry Potter, probably the most powerful wizard in the world, the most loved, the most influential! Was Draco not a Slytherin?! Where was his sense of self-preservation? Just apologise, beg if you have to! Co-operate! Say you've changed, say you never really wanted hurt people, that you're sorry!!

He couldn't.

Not to Potter.

Draco still had some pride, even now.

His father would have done it. His father could grovel to practically anything, if it meant saving his neck. But Draco was too much like his mother, filled to the brim with that notorious Black family trait of pride. Those who say he was just like his father was horrendously wrong, in Draco's opinion. Draco had none of his father's charm, his father's sly, slinking words which would twist and pierce into people's hearts, creating strings for him to puppeteer. Draco was manipulative, yes but he had none of his father's foresight or calculative mind for it to amount to anything.

On the other hand, Draco was as much, if not more, a coward as his father.

And he was scared shitless of Potter right now. With his Killing curse eyes and still water face.

But pride, being the biggest sin, won through.

Draco opened his mouth.

But only just.

Enough only to not apologise.

"Ok, I get it," Draco hissed through clenched teeth, in an effort to hide the tremor in his voice, "No badmouthing the Weasleys, else I'm dead."

He made a stab at getting up. At least then he'll be taller than Potter. Potter's eyes never left his own and they watched him slowly pull himself onto his feet, with a hint of annoyance. And perhaps sadness, though Draco may well have been imagining this, sadness at the loss what was always there between them, an equal sort of tension. Certainly this was the emotion that was filling Draco, anyway.

"Are you scared of me, Malfoy?"

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Of course he was. Who wouldn't be?

"Who would be scared of a scrawny midget like you?" sneered Draco, his self-righteous dignity faithfully kicking up strongly at last, beating away his spinelessness.

Potter looked shocked for less than a second before bemusement trickled into his expression. He shook his head, smirking, smiling a little in what could have been relief.

"And here I thought this was going to be a boring job," he muttered, semi-privately, "Don't know which is worse though; Malfoy being a jittery arse-kisser, or just normal."

There was a crash and the penetrating sting of shattering crockery, as Draco threw a mug from the counter onto the floor. His face was contorted into an ugly snarl and he spat onto Potter's stupid, stupid, stupid grubby shoes. After once last furious glare, he stormed out, out of the café, out into the wilderness.

A perfect way to end a tantrum.

Draco was nothing like his father. His father would have taken in the new information calmly, foresee the advantages of having Potter as his supervisor, and act analytically.

His father would have never had a hissy fit.